On March 18, 2010, Baby Nampet arrived at the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) Elephant Hospital from Chiang Mai.  He was walking on the road when a vehicle hit him.

Baby Nampet arrives at FAE on March 18, 2010, after being hit by a car in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

This is a daily threat and a sad reality for many street elephants in Thailand.  Luckily for Nampet, his owner took him to FAE‘s Elephant Hospital so the staff could examine him and dress his wounds.

Unfortunately, because baby elephants earn a lot of money on the street, posing in pictures and getting fed by (uneducated) tourists, his owner picked him up and took him “back to work” on March 23, 2010.

Staff at FAE encourage Baby Nampet to walk into the truck, so his owner can take him back to Chiang Mai.

Baby Nampet is not the first elephant to be hit by a vehicle in Thailand.  Injuries and car accidents to street elephants will only end once it is no longer profitable; if we end the demand, we’ll decrease the supply.

Please take a few moments to sign the following petitions to get ALL elephants off the streets in Thailand:

Ban Street Begging Elephants in Chiang Mai

Lonely Planet Petition to Educate Tourists

Please consider joining the following Facebook Groups:

Help Ban Begging Street Elephants in Chiang Mai

Save the Elephants, Stop Street Walking Exploitation

Additionally, if you are in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Sunday, April 4, please join the “Help Ban Begging Street Elephants in Chiang Mai” group distribute flyers and raise local and tourist awareness.  Details are listed on their Facebook group page listed above.

Thank you!

-Windy Borman

Director/Producer, The Eyes of Thailand

In addition to building prosthetic limbs for elephants (like Mosha and Motala) that step on landmines, the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) Elephant Hospital also treats elephants for everything from illness to injuries.

On February 15, 2010, Soraida Salwala, Founder of the FAE Elephant Hospital and featured in the elephant conservation documentary, The Eyes of Thailand, announced the successful birth of a new baby elephant:

A new baby was born at Mae Ping Camp in Chiang Mai last night. The baby weighs only 30 k.m. (same as Tiny). Dr. Preecha reached Pung Noi and her baby before noon. Preparation to transport both the mother and her male baby is being carefully carried out.

On February 16, 2010, Pung Kamnoi and her healthy baby boy arrived at FAE:

Dr. Preecha says the baby looks good. We have the soy milk ready in case his mother is not ready to feed him.

The first photos of the happy mother and baby appear below.

Kamnoi arrives at FAE by truck.

The staff at FAE encourage the wobbly newborn elephant to walk off the truck.

Kamnoi and her healthy baby boy.

Kamnoi and Baby Boy.

We are happy to see Kamnoi and her baby bonding and will share more news and photos as we get them.  Please stay tuned!

Sincerely,

Windy Borman

Producer, Director and Writer, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. The Eyes of Thailand is currently fundraising to edit and distribute the film so we can tell the world about the plight of the Asian Elephants and share the great work that Soraida and her staff do at FAE.  To make a tax-deductible donation to the film, please visit our website and click “Donate Now“.  It will take you to the secure online donation page for our fiscal sponsor, The San Francisco Film Society. Thank you!

San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Robert Selna, recently visited the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand, where I filmed for 2 days in August (“Production Days 8-9: Elephant Nature Park“) and spent time with the founder, Lek Chailert.

Selna’s 5 Take-Aways from his visit are:

1Elephants recognize themselves as individuals in mirrors. The experiment was done recently at the Bronx Zoo on three elephants, who, upon seeing their own image in the mirror, responded with self-referential behaviors. One elephant, Maxine, used it to examine the inside of her mouth and back of her ear.

2One way elephants communicate is through infrasound – sound too low in frequency to be audible by humans. Infrasound can travel through the air, through water, through rock, through forest and through the earth. Elephant infrasonic communication can take place over a distance of up to 2.5 miles.

3Some elephants live in matriarchies. They have family units consisting of only adult females, young of both sexes, and a leader who is the oldest and most knowledgeable female.

4Elephants are emotional animals. They don’t weep, but they do pour fluids out of a gland located halfway between the eye and ear in times of great emotional excitement.

5Elephants are caring and empathetic animals. When a member of a social group falls – from illness, for instance – or becomes stuck in mud or water, others will move in and try to raise the debilitated animal to its feet and keep it moving. Sometimes adult females will care for – babysit – an infant or young elephant who has been orphaned or temporarily separated from its mother.

On my final production day, I interviewed Galen Garwood, a U.S. artist and filmmaker living in Chiang Mai who first became involved with the plight of the Thai Asian Elephants 10 years ago.  His stories, articles, films and art share an underlying goal to educate tourists and Thais about the respect and protection elephants deserve.

Galen shared his insight and opinions with me, including his hope that captive elephants have a sanctuary on the edge of a protected national park that contains wild elephants, so that in 2-3 elephant generations the captive elephants will be assimilated into the wild herd and the human visitors would only be able to view the elephants on the periphery of the park.  It’s a very different solution than I’ve heard thus far and would require an international non-profit organization consisting of several different “elephant voices” (thereby limiting the amount of human or government corruption involved in the “elephant politics”), but he remains hopeful that it could save the rapidly declining elephant population in Southeast Asia, while also providing tourists with a less disruptive elephant experience.

At the conclusion of our interview, he invited me to attend a 200 Club fundraiser to start an elephant hospital north of Chiang Mai.  I accepted and briefly interviewed John and Sally about why another elephant hospital was necessary before getting our picture taken by the City Life photographer.

Afterward, I filled my final afternoon in Chiang Mai by:  visiting the Dang Bakery (pronounced with a soft “a”) for some dang brownies that only cost 10 Baht, but could easily cost $5 USD; filming the elephant statues & reliefs at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, where I had flashbacks of climbing—not driving up—the mountain with the Chiang Mai Project in 2007; and joining Apple and Peter at the Sunday Night Market for foot massages before heading to the Chiang Mai airport.

It’s been an amazing journey and I’m sending out a protective force field around all my bags, which contain the 30 tapes and 2 hard drives worth of footage we filmed over the last 12 days!  I’m excited to see the footage and start editing the feature-length documentary so we can distribute it and start educating the rest of the world about the plight of the Asian Elephants and Soraida Salwala’s quest to save them.

Please continue to support us by making a tax-deductible donation through the film’s fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Film Society, by clicking here.

Krup kum ka!

-Windy Borman
Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand

Young elephant at Elephant Nature Park.

On August 19 I journeyed north of Chiang Mai to the Elephant Nature Park, which was founded by Sangduen “Lek” Chailert in 1995.  The ENP is basically a sanctuary for elephants Lek and her staff rescue from logging camps, trekking camps, villagers that find an orphaned elephant but cannot care for them, and sometimes even from begging on the street.

Visitors and volunteers pay to take care of the elephants in the idyllic setting at the base of lush mountains, which can mean anything from preparing baskets of food for the 33 elephants that call ENP home to feeding them, bathing them, or cutting grass with machetes.

Before I sat down to interview her, I had a ground-level view of Lek interacting with her herd of elephants, which include 2 babies.  At one point, I was literally in the middle of the herd—elephants all around me—filming Lek scratch the backs and bellies of the baby elephants while their mothers had lunch nearby.  For a split second I thought, one sudden move and I’ll be trampled; but the footage was amazing!

During her interview, Lek explained that her vision is to educate the mahouts (elephant caretakers), tourists and her government to take better care of the country’s symbol, by providing an alternative to work camps and begging.  For more information, please visit http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/index.htm

-Windy Borman
Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. You can support the documentary production by making a tax-deductible donation through the film’s fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Film Society, by clicking here.  Thank you!

Preparing Motala's prosthetic limb.

Work on Motala’s prosthetic limb began at 9:00am this morning and shortly after lunch Motala took her first steps on her prosthetic limb.  Soraida Salwala fed her small clumps of sugar cane and petted her trunk while the crew from the Prostheses Foundation first slipped on a custom-made cushion, then secured it with an elephant-sized stocking donated by Cherilon.  Finally, the crew slipped on the plastic prosthetic and then cleared out to witness her first steps.

Motala's new prosthetic enables her to walk 10 years after stepping on a landmine.

The crowd was all smiles as she turned on her three good legs and then tentatively applied some weight to her prosthetic limb.  When she was certain it would hold her, she slowly strolled out to the clearing near her unit and enjoyed a sunbath.

Tomorrow I have my one-on-one interview with Soraida to connect the dots between all the events I witnessed this weekend, before I head back to Chiang Mai  in the afternoon.

It’s been an eventful week in Thailand and more shooting days ahead, so please continue to stay tuned!

Krup kum ka!

Windy Borman

Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. To date, the film production has been entirely funded by D.V.A. Produtions and donations.  If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to help us edit and distribute the film, please click here and your donation will be processed by the film’s fiscal sponsor, the San Francisco Film Society. Thank you!

Today, I decided to put my extra day in Chiang Mai to good use.  First, I visited the Elephant Nature Park office near Thapae Gate.  The Founder and Director, Sangduen “Lek” Chailert, is well known in the international elephant conservation and animal rights world and has appeared in several TV shows and documentaries.  I wanted to round out my interviews for The Eyes of Thailand by interviewing her, so I visited the office.  I met Lek and she agreed to let me film at the ENP on August 19-20.

Filming at the Chiang Mai Zoo.

Because it’s foggy in Chiang Mai today, Julia and I decided to postpone our trip to Doi Suthep because we would not be able to see much of Chiang Mai there.  Instead, we went on an elephant hunt at the Chiang Mai Zoo.  A few notes on the Zoo: it’s very clean, has well-kept grounds, and if you were a fan of zoos, you might think it was nice.  Animals were kept in cement enclosures, not unlike the zoos in the US, and in the center of the park, there is a large “Presentation Stage” where handlers have animals do tricks for school kids.

Julia and I followed the signs to the Elephants, but instead found a large Elephant Sanctuary, so to speak, that was under construction.  Julia pointed out that the ground is grass and mud, which is much better for the elephants’ feet than the concrete used elsewhere, but this enclosure had an odd ramp that lead to none other than the… Presentation Stage.  That’s when we remembered that there was a drawing on a poster at the Presentation Stage that showed an elephant painting…

Still searching for the elephants at the zoo, we wandered toward the panda exhibit.  I am not exaggerating when I say, Chiang Mai is crazy about its pandas!  They successfully breed a panda cub recently and panda fever is everywhere (in and out of the zoo): signs, posters, advertisements, painted umbrellas, stuffed animals, a person dressed up in a Panda suit bowing and waving as people enter the exhibit.  It’s an amazing spectacle.

As I filmed this from a distance, Julia noticed an elephant behind a fence.  What we originally thought was an exhibit turned out to be a separate gated area where a group of 4 individuals (who did not appear to work for the zoo), were selling small baskets of fruit to tourists for them to feed the elephant.  The irony of a working elephant at a zoo that is building a “sanctuary” near the “Presentation Stage” did not escape me, so I filmed this  while Julia took pictures.  Julia called him a “tusker” because he had beautiful, long tusks.  I noticed: his sweet, wise eyes; the chain he had on his front foot; and, the slight head swaying that is common among captive elephants. Nonetheless, the tourists paid to feed him, took pictures, and talked animatedly about getting the chance to feed an elephant.

It’s sort of a Catch-22: if the elephant owners have an elephant, they need to have enough money to care for it; but in order to care for it, they need to exploit it by giving tourists a novel experience.

We wrapped up filming at the zoo and then joined my friends Peter and Apple, who I met in Chiang Mai in 2007, for lunch at Suan Paak.  They have the best salads–well, the only salad I’ve found that is safe enough to eat–and the dressing is amazing!

After lunch, I filmed some elephant statues and fountains around Chiang Mai, before returning to the Uniserv to blog while sipping a cha yen and nibbling on Macadamia Pie at Doi Chang.

Tonight is the Night Market, where we hope to spot some street elephants for the documentary, and tomorrow at 7:30am we depart for Friends of the Asian Elephant.

-Windy Borman

Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. Production in Thailand is scheduled until August 24, 2009.  If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution to help fund the production, please click here to donate through the film’s fiscal sponsor, The San Francisco Film Society.  Thank you!

This is how I roll in Chiang Mai: Aviators, Bike Helmet, I think I look like a '70s Cop from "Chips".

Baggage of a Documentary Filmmaker

One of my favorite exchanges from Shakespeare in Love is:

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

The statement is as true for Shakespearian theatre as it is for international documentary production.

This morning I awoke from my jet-lagged slumber and packed up all my bags and gear in order to depart for Lampang at 12:00noon.  Before that, though, I needed to run some errands—breakfast (at Bake & Bite), ATM, sunglasses, TB drive—which meant… more riding on the back of a motorbike.

The ATM was an attempt to stagger my withdrawals so I would have enough Baht on hand to pay the camera operator for a 2-day shoot and a 2-day HD camera rental.  That turned into an ordeal and after several failed ATM and bank teller attempts, I needed to call my bank in the US…

That required a US calling card so I could make calls from my cell phone (which now has a Thai # and a Thai SIM card).  While I was at the cell phone store at the mall, I also got help setting up my voicemail so I could hear the prompts in English (not Thai).  By the time those errands were done, the Bangkok Bank was open.  I called my bank in the US and they removed the foreign ATM restriction, so I could pull out cash, which I would have to do in smaller increments than I originally thought…

By this time I received a text message from Soraida Salwala, stating she was too ill to meet me today and was hoping to be able to join me at FAE on Saturday, August 15!  Because she is the subject of my documentary and there is not much point in me being at FAE without her, I needed to adjust my production schedule, so I canceled the 12noon driver pick-up.  Between his broken English and my very poor Thai—I know how to say 7 things: ka (yes), mai (no), Sawasdee ka (hello), krup kum ka (thank you), check bin (check please), jai (Buddhist/vegetarian), and cha yen (Thai Iced Tea)—we were able to figure it out…

To give myself time to plot my next move, I tackled two more errands: purchasing new sunglasses (because mine fell off on the motorbike ride yesterday) and a TB drive (to hold the HD footage we shoot over the weekend).  Bronze Aviators: 199 Baht.  TB drive: 6,000+ Baht…

While shopping, I realized that I should wait to head down to FAE until Saturday morning so I can ride with Liam (Camera Operator) and Julia (Photographer), and save 1000+ Baht if I had to hire a driver twice; however, that meant checking into a hostel for 2 nights in Chiang Mai.  The first place that came to mind was the IC (now the Uniserv) at Chiang Mai University, off Nimmanhaemen Rd., where I stayed in 2007 with the cast of the Chiang Mai Project.  It feels good to be somewhere familiar with air conditioning, even if it does cost 600 Baht/night…

Next stop: cha yen break at Happy Hut.

More texts with Soraida, plus a call to Dr. Preecha, told me that—Surprise! The schedule is changing again, although not drastically.  They decided that Mosha needs to have her prosthesis adjusted while the Prosthesis Foundation crew is at FAE helping Motala.  Today, it stands that Mosha will get her leg adjusted on Saturday at 9:00 am and the crew will start building Motala’s leg on Saturday afternoon.  Both procedures are scheduled to be completed by Sunday evening…

One more call to the driver and I rescheduled the pick-up for Saturday at 7:30am at Uniserv.  Next, I called Liam and Julia to share the change in plans.  Finally, now that I have a tentative schedule again, I started reaching out to my other interviewees, Richard Lair and Galen Garwood to schedule their interviews around the changes…

After the phone calls, I was able to get settled at Uniserv, and just in time, too, because a thunderstorm decided to roll into town.  After some email, Facebook and To-Do List making, I decided to use the down-time to get a Thai massage at Nimman House.  200 Baht (less that $7) for a 60-minute massage?  Ka!

What’s in store for tomorrow?  I’d like to actually use my camera to film around Chiang Mai.  Currently, I plan to film the view from Doi Suthep; film the elephants at the Chiang Mai Zoo; spend the afternoon filming as many elephant statues, topiary, signs, and fountains as possible; and then visit the Night Market in the evening to buy some saffron and film some street elephants.

How much gets crossed off that shot list? “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

Windy Borman

Producer, Writer, Director, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. Production in Thailand is scheduled until August 24, 2009.  If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution to help fund the production, please click here to donate through the film’s fiscal sponsor, The San Francisco Film Society.  Thank you!

Sawasdee ka!

I arrived in Chiang Mai this afternoon and already have had an eventful trip!  A fellow Bay Area Women in Film and Media member connected me with a local elephant photographer, who agreed to host me at her house this evening.  She met me at the Chiang Mai airport, hailed a tuk tuk to take all my bags to her house, and then helped me get settled for my first night in Thailand.

At 4:00pm, we met with local Director of Photography, Liam Morgan, about the film shoot at Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE) on August 15-16, 2009, when Motala gets her first prosthetic limb–ten years after stepping on a landmine along the Burmese border!  Liam is on board to shoot at FAE, but since he’s shooting in HD (which records to memory cards and not tapes), I need to buy a backup Terabyte drive to hold the footage and hope nothing wipes the footage before I return to the US.

Next, came errands: a Thai SIM card to use my blackberry with a local number; dinner at Taste from Heaven; ATM; and, a bottled water run.

The most eventful part of the day by far was holding a futon mattress on the back of a motorbike!  To those who know me well enough to doubt that I road a motorbike, given how I feel about any sport that requires a helmet (I don’t like them), let the burn on the side of my right leg from the exhaust pipe stand as proof that I did, in fact, ride on the back of a motorbike all over Chiang Mai this afternoon.  Wearing a helmet.

Tomorrow (August 13), I head to FAE in Lampang to begin filming the preparations for the prosthesis fittings this weekend.  I still need to buy a TB drive, make arrangements to pay the DP and camera rental in Thai Baht (not US$), and figure out how to get a stills photographer and DP to Lampang 2 days after me…

Please stay tuned for more updates!

Sincerely,

Windy Borman

Producer, Writer, Director, The Eyes of Thailand

P.S. I will be  filming in Thailand until August 24, 2009.  If you’d like to make a tax-deductible contribution to help fund the production, please click here to donate through the film’s fiscal sponsor, The San Francisco Film Society.  Thank you!

In case you thought only African Elephants needed to fear poachers and ivory dealers, please read the following excerpts from a June 18, 2009 article by Sarah Janicke:

“Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world’s top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues,” said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC, which oversees a global monitoring programme, the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

While much of the ivory  is illegally imported from Africa (thus coming from African Elephants, not Asian Elephants), the ivory workshop owners reported ties to European knife makers and U.S. gun shops.  But that isn’t the only illegal trade happening in Thailand.

The study also uncovered reports of traders buying wild-caught elephant calves for use in Bangkok as “beggars” on the streets in major tourist centres, or selling them to elephant camps and entertainment parks.

Hundreds of live elephants are known to have been illegally imported from Myanmar in recent years, to be sold to elephant trekking companies catering to adventure tourism in Thailand. The capture of wild elephants has been banned in Thailand since the 1970s, but such trade usually goes undetected because domesticated elephants do not have to be registered legally until they are eight years of age.

For more information, please read the rest of the article here.

-Windy Borman

Producer, Writer and Director, The Eyes of Thailand